History

 The partnership between the Greater Milwaukee Synod and the Diocese of Meru in Tanzania began with the arrival of the Elias Kitoi Nasari family in the United States. Pr. Elias came with his family so he could pursue graduate study at Wartburg Theological Seminary in Dubuque, Ia. At the time (March 1993) I was serving as the Coordinator for Region 5 of the ELCA, with my office at Wartburg Seminary. My wife and I received a call from the staff person at the seminary responsible for the international student program asking if we would be willing to house this Tanzanian family of 5 for a short time until they would become acclimated to Dubuque. One of the best things we ever did was to say "yes!" So we met them at the airport and welcomed them to our home. 

By the time they moved into married student housing a week later we had thoroughly bonded. The friendship only grew and deepened for the next year. In the early spring of 1994 Pr. Elias told me his bishop, Paulo Akyoo, had asked him whether he could explore the possibility of establishing a companion synod with one of the synods of the ELCA. Knowing that I was soon retiring and would return to Milwaukee, Pr. Elias asked if I thought our synod would be interested. I was a little skeptical, knowing that there was already a companionship with the church in El Salvador. Nevertheless I promised I would talk to Bishop Peter Rogness about the possibility. His response was that he would not promote a new partnership, but neither would he oppose it. So I arranged for him to meet Pr. Elias and after that meeting Bp. Rogness encouraged me by giving me the names of several pastors in our synod whom he thought might be interested. Several of them in fact were interested and together we made arrangements for Pr. Elias to visit our synod a number of times during the fall of 1994 both to meet with pastors and to preach in some of our congregations. Needless to say, after meeting Pr. Elias there were many who became enthusiastic about the possibility of this new relationship. 

Working with representatives of this group we put together a proposal calling for an invitation to the Diocese of Meru to enter into a companion relationship with our synod. This proposal was adopted at our 1995 synod assembly and by the subsequent assembly of the Diocese. After mutually adopting some guidelines for our partnership, plans were made to actually implement it in person by arranging for delegations to visit each other. So the partnertship was actually launched when a delegation of 9 people travelled from Milwaukee to the Meru Diocese in January of 1997. At the time of this writing (April 2013) the only people from this delegation left in our synod are Pr. Paul Mittermaier and Pr. & Mrs. Edward & Gloria Weiskotten. 

Rev. Edward Weiskotten was born to eternal life on November 29, 2022.  

Link to Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Obituary 

 The Greater Milwaukee/Meru Partnership is indeed the work of the Holy Spirit. It was started by an idea from Bishop Paulo Akyoo who asked me to look for a possibility of finding and establing a global partner, especially with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America while I was studying at Wartburg Theological Seminary, Dubuque, Iowa (1993-1996). By this time, the Diocese of Meru, had just been born (June, 1992) and already had partnership with Bamberg Dekanat (an Evangelical Lutheran Church in Germany's small district in Bavaria)- which was started while the Diocese of Meru was by then, Meru District in the Northern Diocese, Moshi. Also by this same time, many of the ELCT (Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania) dioceses, were starting to establish a Christian partnership with the ELCA Synods. 

To implement Bishop Akyoo's request, I tried asking a couple of congregations of a possibility of starting a partnership between them and the Diocese of Meru, but didn.t sound workable unless started and initiated by the bishop of the Synod. I didn't know any bishop by that time. Thanks be to Reverend Edward Weiskotten- who was an ELCA, Region V Coordinator, with his office at Wartburg Seminary; who (he and his wife - Gloria), welcomed us to stay with them for about two weeks upon our arrival at Wartburg Seminary, freshly coming from Tanzania, generously helping us to settle in. 

Even when we had moved into the seminary apartments/houses, we continued our connections and friendship; where one day, I asked Reverend Edward whether he knew any bishop who could connect me with his/her respective Synod. Apparently, that became kind of an easy task for him to introduce me to Bishop Rogness-the Bishop of the Greater Milwaukee Synod by then. When I presented Bishop Akyoo's request to him, ( in a Theological Conference which was held in Cincinawa Mounds ( Roman Catholic Retreat Center) in fall of 1995, he was kind of not sure about starting that partnership, because he was hesitant of starting two global partnerships in the same Synod. It should be remembered that the El Salvador's partnership with the Greater Milwaukee Synod had just begun; but Bishop Rigness allowed me to approach individual congregations, to see whether they were interested; something which I did from Fall of 1995 until 1996 . So, Reverend Edward helped me a great deal in connecting myself to congregations which wanted to invite an International Student from Wartburg Seminary to come preach and speak, and to many of those congregations, the pastors were willing to ask their members whether they were interested in pursuing a partnership with the Diocese of Meru- of which many did; and therefore, Rev. Edward and myself, were then able to suggest to Bishop Rogness later, regarding names of congregations which were ready to engage on the Meru/Greater Milwaukee Synod partnership; which was officially accepted in the Synod's Asembly - 1996; and we had the first delegation to the Diocese of Meru, led by Bishop Peter Rogness and Reverend Edward Weiskotten ( the 1st Chair of the Meru Committee)visit the Diocese of Meru in January, 1997- just after I had return home from my studies at Wartburg Theological Seminary.  

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Via Email:  PartnerswithMeru@MilwaukeeSynod.org